Giacomo's Jockey Ready for Mounting Attention

LOUISVILLE, May 8 -- Trainer John Shirreffs, notoriously spotlight averse, caught a flight back to California after dinner Saturday night, but jockey Mike Smith easily took care of speaking for the Giacomo team the morning after the colt's stunning upset in the 131st Kentucky Derby.

"I'm going to have to handle it for him," Smith said of the instant stardom America's most famous horse race bestows upon the winning connections. "I'm a 'handle it' type of person."

Indeed, at that moment on the Churchill Downs backstretch, a track staffer leaned into Smith and told him that "The Late Show with David Letterman" was looking to book him as a guest. Around the rest of the barns, however, trainers of the also-rans weren't looking at Giacomo so much as a new celebrity but, rather, a one-hit wonder.

The gray colt, who paid $102.60 for a $2 win bet, the second-highest payoff in Derby history, may have gone from 18th to first in a brilliant stretch run by Smith, but his final fractional times suggested a horse crawling to victory.

"You don't want to disrespect the horse that ran good, but it's a throw-out race," said Hall of Fame trainer Bobby Frankel, whose High Limit badly cut his right hind leg in the race and finished dead last.

After a speed-packed field led by Spanish Chestnut blazed through an opening six furlongs in 1 minute 9.59 seconds, the closers Giacomo, Afleet Alex and fourth-place finisher Don't Get Mad pounced. Only Closing Argument, who finished second as the longest shot on the board, survived among the horses anywhere close to the pace.

Giacomo won the 1 1/4 -mile race in 2:02.75. His final two quarter-miles went by in a creeping 26.29 seconds and 26.87 seconds.

"If Giacomo goes on and runs well in the next two races, I'll say it wasn't a fluke," said trainer Tim Ritchey, whose Afleet Alex was the only runner among the favorites to finish strongly. "My horse was on the board and we beat the horses we had to beat. We just didn't know the other two horses would show up the way they did."

Indeed, with all eyes focused on the five-horse battalion trainer Nick Zito sent out, especially favorite Bellamy Road, and the three tough horses Todd Pletcher ran, no one could have guessed the top three finishers would come out of the barns of trainers who had never run a Derby horse.

"If you have the horse, there's hundreds of trainers out there that can do the job," Ritchey said.

Maryland Jockey Club President Joe De Francis and a team from Pimlico worked the backstretch Sunday morning, and had no problem drumming up runners to take another crack at Giacomo in the Preakness Stakes on May 21.

The top three finishers are expected to renew hostilities, while Zito said at least two of his horses are likely entries. Wilko, sixth on Saturday, and Flower Alley, who made big move for Pletcher before checking sharply behind a tiring Spanish Chestnut, also are possible. Frankel, too, sounded inclined to ship to Baltimore.